Multiple sewing mode presser-foot



Feb. 4, 1969 P N 3,425,378

MULTIPLE SEWING MODE PRESSER-FOO'I' Filed March 16, 1967 IIQIIA! rm W15! INVENTOR. Ronald M. Kaplan Witness BY flwall'ml Tm: /ATTORNEY United States Patent 3,425,378 MULTIPLE SEWING MODE PRESSER-FOOT Ronald M. Kaplan, Cedar Grove, N.J., assignor to The Singer Company, New York, N.Y., a corporation of New Jersey Filed Mar. 16, 1967, Ser. No. 623,649

US. (ll. 112--235 Int. Cl. Db 29/08 7 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Backgroulnd of the invention It has been the practice of zigzag sewing machine manufacturers to provide their customers with a resser-foot that is designed for straight stitch sewing and another one that is designed for zigzag sewing. The zigzag presserfoot includes an elongated slot transverse of the line of stitching to accommodate the lateral throw of the needle during zigzag stitching, while the straight stitch presserfoot provides a small circular opening to accommodate the endwise in place reciprocations of the needle. The zigzag resser-foot will, of course, accommodate straight stitching in addition to zigzag stitching, but because of the additional area required in the needle opening in the zigzag presser-foot, there will be greater work material flagging which, in turn, will reduce the quality of the stitching.

Thus, where two presser-feet are utilized, the operator must exchange presser-feet whenever she wishes to switch from one to the other type of stitching, .a time consuming and annoying operation forthe operator. Furthermore, it is understandable that some operators will leave the zig zag resser-foot on at all times rather than take the time to switch to a straight stitch resser-foot when straight stitching is required, which, as explained above, will produce poorer quality straight stitches as compared with the stitches produced when the straight stitch resser-foot is used.

German Patent No. 1,135,277, Nov. 1, 1961, J. Fimmel, discloses a rotatable turret that supports three separate resser-feet and is mounted on the sewing machine presser-bar. The turret may be rotated to bring a selected one of the presser-feet into operative position beneath the needle-bar. However, in such an arrangement the turret assembly occupies space in the vicinity of the stitching point that could be utilized by the operator to manipulate the work material. In addition, the relatively bulky turret assembly interferes with the operators view of the work material.

Summary The problems set forth above are solved by the present invention in which the usual resser-foot is modified to accommodate an adjustable member formed with a plurality of differently shaped openings and mounted on the presser-foot. The adjustable member is mounted within the confines of the presser-foot and may be easily adjusted by manual manipulation to prepare the pressertoot for various types of stitching operations.

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It is an object, therefore, of the present invention to reduce the number of resser-feet required for utilization with zigzag sewing machines.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a single presser-foot equiped with adjustable means for accommodating either straight or zigzag stitching.

Having in mind the above and other objects that will be evident from an understanding of this disclosure, the invention comprises the devices, combinations and arrangements of parts as illustrated in the presently preferred embodiment of the invention which is hereafter set forth in such detail as to enable those skilled in the art readily'to understand the function, operation, construction and advantages of it when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Brief description of the drawing FIG. 1 is a side elevational view of part of a sewing machine equipped with the adjustable resser-foot of the present invention,

FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view of the adjustable presser-foot of FIG. 1,

FIG. 3 is a top plan view of the presser-foot of the present invention,

FIG. 4 is a bottom plan view or" the resser-foot of the present invention,

FIG. 5 is a sectional view taken along lines 5--5 of FIG. 3, and

FIG. 6 is a sectional view taken along lines 6-6 of FIG. 3.

Description of the preferred embodiment With reference to the drawings, the present invention is illustrated as utilized with a zigzag sewing machine having a head 10 provided with a bushing 11 in which a presser-bar 12 is endwise slidably carried. The presser-bar 12 may be raised and lowered by a manually operated lever 14, as is conventional in the art and it is. also conventional to provide a spring means (not shown) for biasing the presser-bar downwardly. A needle-bar 16 in carrying a needle 18 is journaled for endwise reciprocation and for vibration laterally of the line of stitch formation, or in other words, for zigzag movements in the head 10 by mechanism (not shown) in the conventional manner.

A presser-foot 20 includes a shank 22 and a sole plate 24 pivotally mounted on the shank which shank is releasably secured to the resser-bar 12 by a conventional clamp arrangement including a locking screw 26 and bracket 28, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2.

The sole plate 24 includes a top surface 30 and a bottom surface 32 and is divided, generally, into a toe section 34 and a heel section 36. The toe section 34 has formed therein an elongated opening 38 extending transversely of the presser-foot length and is sufiiciently long to accommodate the lateral movements of the needle 18 when the sewing machine is operating in the zigzag mode. The heel section includes a threaded screw hole 40 substantially centrally located in the sole plate and a threaded screw hole 42 located in the right rear (as viewed from the front of the resser-foot) segment of the heel section. Forward of the screw hole 42 the upper surface of the heel section 36 is formed with a fiat segment 44 which joins a downwardly sloping section 46 which extends into an opening 48 in the heel section. The bottom surface 32 of the sole plate has formed therein a substantially circular recess 50 which is concentric with the screw hole 40 and which opens out of the opposite lengthwise sides of the presser-foot to form slots 52 therein.

The circular recess 50 receives a disc 54 having a serrated edge 56, a top surface 58 and a bottom surface 60. The disc 54 is rotatably mounted in the recess 50 by a screw 62 which is accommodated in the threaded screw hole 40. The screw 62 is received by a countersunk hole 64 centrally located in the disc 54. The countersunk hole 64 allows the head of the screw 60 to be set flush with or slightly above (as viewed in FIG. 6) the bottom surface 32 of the presser-foot thereby to insure that a flat surface is presented to the work material. The disc 54 is formed with an elongated slot 66 and a diametrically opposite circular hole 68. In addition, the top surface 58 of the disc 54 is formed with a pair of diametrically opposite radial notches 70 which extend to the disc periphery 56. Each notch 70 is positioned approximately one half the distance between the slot 66 and the hole 68 in the disc.

A spring leaf 72 is secured at one end to the top surface 30 of the sole plate 24 and against the flat segment 44 thereof by a screw 74 that is received in the threaded screw hole 42. The spring leaf 72 is formed at its other, free end, with a detent 76 that protrudes down through the opening 48 in the heel section 36 of the sole plate so as to be biased against the disc 54 for engagement with one or the other of the notches 70.

With the presser-foot 20 assembled as shown in FIG. 1 and FIGS. 3-6 the serrated edge 56 of the disc 54 extends through the slots 52 beyond the sides of the sole plate 24 so that the operator may grasp the edge 56 between his thumb and forefinger and easily rotate the disc. When the disc is rotated so that the disc slot 66 is aligned with the sole plate slot 38, the presser-foot is ready for zigzag sewing. Simply by rotating the disc the operator may at any time align the circular disc hole 68 with the center of the elongated slot 38 of the sole plate .24 and thereby prepare the presser-foot for straight stitch sewing. The leaf Spring 72 and its detent 76 cooperate with the notches 70 of the disc 54 properly to align the hole 68 and the slot 66 of the disc with the slot 38 and also hold the disc against rotation except when rotation is effected by manual manipulation thereof.

Having thus set forth the nature of this invention, what is claimed herein is:

1. A multiple mode presser-foot for a sewing machine having a frame, a presser-bar supported in said frame and a thread carrying needle supported in said frame for endwise reciprocatory movement, said presser-foot comprising a sole plate and a shank fastened to said sole plate and means for securing said shank to said presser-bar to sustain said sole plate in a predetermined location relatively to the path of said endwise reciprocatory movement of said needle, a substantially disc-shaped shiftable mem ber mounted on said sole plate, means for journaling said disc-shaped member on said presser-foot sole plate, said shiftable member being formed with a plurality of differently shaped needle accommodating apertures, and means for locating said member relatively to said sole plate to align any selected one of said differently shaped needle accommodating apertures with the path of said endwise reciprocatory needle.

2. A multiple mode resser-foot as set forth in claim .1 in which said sole plate is formed with a needle accommodating aperture formed and aligned to accommodate lateral jogging motion of said endwise reciprocatory needle.

3. A multiple mode resser-foot as set forth in claim 2 in which said member locating means includes the periphery of said disc-shaped member mounted on said sole plate to protrude beyond at least one side of said sole plate to provide operator access to said disc-shaped member periphery to turn said disc-shaped member periphery to turn said disc-shaped member.

4. A multiple mode presser-foot as set forth in claim 2 in which said member locating means includes a spring biased detent carried by said sole plate, said disc-shaped member being formed with spaced detent accommodating notches equal in number to the number of different needle accommodating apertures formed in said disc-shaped member, said notches being located in said member relatively to a specific needle accommodating aperture so as to lock said specific needle accommodating aperture in alignment with the path of said endwise reciprocatory needle when said notch is engaged by said spring detent.

5. A multiple mode presser-foot as set forth in claim 2 in which two needle accommodating apertures are formed in said disc-shaped member on diametrically opposite sides of the disc-shaped member, a pair of diametrically opposite notches formed in said disc-shaped member, each notch being located substantially midway between said two needle accommodating apertures, and a spring biased detent carried by said sole plate for engagement selectively with said notches to locate a selected one of said needle accommodating apertures in alignment with the path of said endwise reciprocatory needle.

6. A multiple mode presser-foot as set forth in claim 1 in which the under surface of said sole plate is formed with a recess in which said disc-shaped member is accommodated substantially flush with the underside of said sole plate, and in which the diameter of said disc-shaped member is greater than the width of said sole plate.

7. A multiple mode presser-foot for a sewing machine having a frame, a presser-bar supported in said frame for endwise reciprocatory movement, said resser-foot comprising a sole plate and a shank fastened to said sole plate and means for securing said shank to said presser-bar to sustain said sole plate in a predetermined location relatively to the path of said endwise reciprocatory movement of said needle, said sole plate having formed in the bottom surface thereof a recess, a shiftable member mounted on said sole plate, said shiftable member being formed with a flat work piece engaging surface, said shiftable member being received in the recess, said flat work piece engaging surface of said shiftable member being substantially flush with the under side of said sole plate, said shiftable member being formed with a plurality of differently shaped needle accommodating apertures, and means for shifting said member in the recess to align any selected one of said differently shaped needle accommodating apertures with the path of said endwise reciprocatory needle.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS PATRICK D. LAWSON, Primary Examiner. 

